hardgainers, read this.

I consider myself a hard gainer. not an impossible gainer, but i can eat whatever i want and i gain slow. i have found that I dont gain body fat easily so bulking for me sucks lol here is one tip that has worked for me. a problem i see with most hard gainers is they say they eat alot, but really dont.

* track your meals for one week whether its on paper or online. Find your best day (highest cals, highest protein, highest carbs). that should be your average day, if not more. think how much you ate that one "good" day. now add an extra protein shake, chicken breast and 2 peanut butter jellys in there and that should be your average day. of course this wont work for everyone, but it worked for me when i first started to get serious

I consider myself a hard gainer. not an impossible gainer, but i can eat whatever i want and i gain slow. i have found that I dont gain body fat easily so bulking for me sucks lol here is one tip that has worked for me. a problem i see with most hard gainers is they say they eat alot, but really dont.

* track your meals for one week whether its on paper or online. Find your best day (highest cals, highest protein, highest carbs). that should be your average day, if not more. think how much you ate that one "good" day. now add an extra protein shake, chicken breast and 2 peanut butter jellys in there and that should be your average day. of course this wont work for everyone, but it worked for me when i first started to get serious

well, as a freshman i was 5'3" 85 pounds. Now im 22 5'9" 192 (give or take a few pounds). I started to workout as a freshman. just casually at 24 hour and at my school. didnt eat alot, didnt know anything about anything. when i was a senior, i started to get more involved. as a freshman in college is when it really took off and thats when i knew i had to fix my diet.

Good advice. Another great way of getting extra calories when bulking is adding Cals to your shakes. I like to add 1/2 cup oats, peanut butter, and a banana or two (among other things). And if you have the money, a weight gainer will help too. Universal Mass Gains was always my favorite back when i was all about bulking.
Nowadays, i spend much more of my time cutting. Being a hardgainer aint soo bad, bc it just makes your cutting time a hell of alot easier.

Good advice. Another great way of getting extra calories when bulking is adding Cals to your shakes. I like to add 1/2 cup oats, peanut butter, and a banana or two (among other things). And if you have the money, a weight gainer will help too. Universal Mass Gains was always my favorite back when i was all about bulking.
Nowadays, i spend much more of my time cutting. Being a hardgainer aint soo bad, bc it just makes your cutting time a hell of alot easier.

.....in high school I was 6ft 140lbs ...i got from 6 ft 170 to 205 lbs but seem to be stuck at this weight now. but been on this weight for 2 weeks. I been adding protein scoops to almost every meal now and hopefully that will work.

I am now trying to figure out if working out a body part 2 times a week is better then just once a week for bulking

like for instance (monday and thursday) I can throw in chest triceps legs - (tuesday friday) back biceps abs

Compared to me you are bulky. I am 6 '1" and 195 lbs. I could not gain any weight until my late twenties. I am 48 now. I eat 7 times a day and need to eat over 3500 calories to keep 200 lbs. You are actually lucky.

I was super skinny. I am for sure a natural ectomorph. I have 6 inch wrists. Very small ankles like frank zane. I weighed 130 in high school at 6 feet tall. I hit 150 in college. then I just started BB 6 months ago. I was 170 in the gym and now 205. I was only hitting 3000 calories.

What is your protein and carb intake? what are you lifting? are you active? Do you have any digestive problems?

I was super skinny. I am for sure a natural ectomorph. I have 6 inch wrists. Very small ankles like frank zane. I weighed 130 in high school at 6 feet tall. I hit 150 in college. then I just started BB 6 months ago. I was 170 in the gym and now 205. I was only hitting 3000 calories.

What is your protein and carb intake? what are you lifting? are you active? Do you have any digestive problems?

its not impossible. i eat around that just to maintain. heck i cut with 3000 cals no joke

im a personal trainer, but im decently active.....protein 300g carbs 370g fat 100 g......high carb days, moderate days re 300 pro 270 carb 144 fat....i track it, i had digestive isues however, but ive beenwith a doc for a while and dont see hwo they coudl not havegotten better......i used to be about 165-170 5% bf in high school and when i was goin gto play college football but got real sick and got down to 100lbs but ive been stuck at my current weight for probably a year and a half, most i ever got up to was 150

Another issue with 'hard gainers' is that they are over-estimating how much they eat (I do this quite frequently).

You may THINK you are consuming adequate macros to stimulate growth, however if you wrote it all down and averaged it out you are not consuming anywhere near what you thought.

That being said, your advice to keep a journal is A+

lol you are ttoally right. I been doing this for a while, 4 months of 6 meals a day thought I was eating a lot 3000K + and boy was I wrong. My protein was only 100g+ carbs 200+ fat like 40 lol. That explained why I got more defined then bulkier then anything.

Got to tell you, bodybugg + myfitnesspal android app are the most useful tools as far as this goes. Every day I make sure fitnesspal says 400-600 cals more than bodybugg tells me I burned and like magic I'm up about 1lb/week like clockwork. You can also set your macro ratios in the app so you don't have to guess what percentages you're hitting. It will also give you the % breakdown of weekly consumption of carb/pro/fat so you make sure that even if you mix it up daily, you're in line in the long run.

one thing I just do not understand is, your body stores everything as fat, for the nutrients that are not being used that is. I just dont get the science behind it. So, if I eat 600 calories over my maint. that would be stored in fat cells. So, how does that build muscle?

Like isnt it the same thing to just eat less carbs so you wont get a high fat storage, but keep large counts of protein in your diet?

And thanks for all your replies =) I am learning a lot! But as you can see, I still need tons of things to learn lol

one thing I just do not understand is, your body stores everything as fat, for the nutrients that are not being used that is. I just dont get the science behind it. So, if I eat 600 calories over my maint. that would be stored in fat cells. So, how does that build muscle?

Like isnt it the same thing to just eat less carbs so you wont get a high fat storage, but keep large counts of protein in your diet?

And thanks for all your replies =) I am learning a lot! But as you can see, I still need tons of things to learn lol

Your body will also store any excess protein and dietary fat as body fat. The only way to get your body to use these extra calories to expand muscle tissue instead of storing them as body fat is to lift really heavy s**t several times, then wait a minute and do it again, and repeat for your various body parts.

The key here is you need to push your body into adapting to better accomodate the stress you're putting on it, in this case making your muscles bigger/stronger so it's easier to lift the things you're asking it to lift. Lift heavy, especially on your main compound lifts, and give your muscles time to rebuild and those extra calories will go to muscle instead of just fat.

Things you can do to enhance the muscle building ability of your body are to make sure your nutrition is in check (1-2g protein/lb of bodyweight, 0.5-0.8g good fats/lb of body weight, and plenty of CLEAN COMPLEX CARBOHYDRATES like brown rice, oats, and green veggies and some limited fruits). Also limit your comsumption of refined sugars as these will, over time, make your muscles insulin resistant. What this means is that when nutrients are available in your blood stream they go to either muscle or fat, whatever wants to grab them first. If you're insulin resistant your muscles will pass up the food and the only thing that grows then is your waistline (why so many diabetics are overweight and why being overweight can make you diabetic).

So, to recap:

Make a good nutrition plan and follow it
Eat a lot and eat often
Hit the weights with 110% effort every time

Your body will also store any excess protein and dietary fat as body fat. The only way to get your body to use these extra calories to expand muscle tissue instead of storing them as body fat is to lift really heavy s**t several times, then wait a minute and do it again, and repeat for your various body parts.

The key here is you need to push your body into adapting to better accomodate the stress you're putting on it, in this case making your muscles bigger/stronger so it's easier to lift the things you're asking it to lift. Lift heavy, especially on your main compound lifts, and give your muscles time to rebuild and those extra calories will go to muscle instead of just fat.

Things you can do to enhance the muscle building ability of your body are to make sure your nutrition is in check (1-2g protein/lb of bodyweight, 0.5-0.8g good fats/lb of body weight, and plenty of CLEAN COMPLEX CARBOHYDRATES like brown rice, oats, and green veggies and some limited fruits). Also limit your comsumption of refined sugars as these will, over time, make your muscles insulin resistant. What this means is that when nutrients are available in your blood stream they go to either muscle or fat, whatever wants to grab them first. If you're insulin resistant your muscles will pass up the food and the only thing that grows then is your waistline (why so many diabetics are overweight and why being overweight can make you diabetic).

So, to recap:

Make a good nutrition plan and follow it
Eat a lot and eat often
Hit the weights with 110% effort every time

ahhh so your body kind of stores the protein and carbs a different way and uses it as your muscle fibers expand, right?

ahhh so your body kind of stores the protein and carbs a different way and uses it as your muscle fibers expand, right?

Your muscles are made out of protein, water, and stored glycogen (a ready-to-use carbohydrate source for energy), so both protein (amino acids) and carbohydrates are needed to build muscle tissue. In the case of having more than enough protein and carbs in the blood, they will be broken down and reconstituted into fatty acids and stored as body fat. Once protein and carbs are made into fat, they can't be changed back into protein. So, once these nutrients are "stored" they won't be used to build muscle tissue. Feeding muscle growth is something that is done with fresh nutrient intake, not body tissue "recycling" so to speak.

Your body will also store any excess protein and dietary fat as body fat. The only way to get your body to use these extra calories to expand muscle tissue instead of storing them as body fat is to lift really heavy s**t several times, then wait a minute and do it again, and repeat for your various body parts.

The key here is you need to push your body into adapting to better accomodate the stress you're putting on it, in this case making your muscles bigger/stronger so it's easier to lift the things you're asking it to lift. Lift heavy, especially on your main compound lifts, and give your muscles time to rebuild and those extra calories will go to muscle instead of just fat.

Things you can do to enhance the muscle building ability of your body are to make sure your nutrition is in check (1-2g protein/lb of bodyweight, 0.5-0.8g good fats/lb of body weight, and plenty of CLEAN COMPLEX CARBOHYDRATES like brown rice, oats, and green veggies and some limited fruits). Also limit your comsumption of refined sugars as these will, over time, make your muscles insulin resistant. What this means is that when nutrients are available in your blood stream they go to either muscle or fat, whatever wants to grab them first. If you're insulin resistant your muscles will pass up the food and the only thing that grows then is your waistline (why so many diabetics are overweight and why being overweight can make you diabetic).

So, to recap:

Make a good nutrition plan and follow it
Eat a lot and eat often
Hit the weights with 110% effort every time